Maria Hill's Bi-Annual Performance Review
by nb41
Summary: Maria's first performance review at Stark Industries involves a lot of food and a little negotiating.


Set post-_Captain America: The Winter Soldier_ and post-_Thor: The Dark World_.

* * *

Maria receives the email on a late November morning as it's sleeting in New York and a Hydra cell in Peru is making grief for the Avengers; the email she's known was coming but kept forgetting to ask Delilah about. The day never lets up, so she doesn't get to it until just as she's packing up to head home. The subject line catches her eye first (**Performance Review**), and then she sees it's come directly from Pepper (_not_ Pepper's assistant, Joaquin) and has a few document files attached.

She fills them out that evening over a glass of wine while a couple episodes of Game of Thrones drone by in the background and emails the files to Pepper. She's not one to fret over these kinds of things, and in fact she's so busy for the next few days that the review drops off her radar entirely until Pepper's assistant emails her with Pepper's copy of the forms and a note that she'll be by around 8am to discuss a date and time. Maria manages to skim the contents (all favorable) before Pepper arrives.

She swings her monitor aside so its not blocking their view of one another. "That time already," she says, letting a little wry humor creep into her voice. Pepper smiles.

"Already." Pepper's assistant is hovering in the hall looking anxious, though he always does. She pulls out her smartphone and swipes at it. "How about next Monday over breakfast? I can get us some coffee and pastries from the bakery."

That sets this up as a less than formal review, which in all honesty Maria's been half-expecting. Her relationship with Pepper is reasonably solid. "Sure thing. Anything else while you have me?"

"No, I'm actually on my way to a conference call with West Coast R&amp;D. Apparently there's a labor dispute, and Tony wants me there to make sure he doesn't screw up," Pepper says. Maria gives her a sympathetic smile.

"Let me know if you need his line to 'accidentally' drop out, or anything."

Pepper seems to give it serious thought. "I'll keep that in mind," she says, and departs. Maria sends a quick chat to Delilah, asking her to block off the following Monday morning from 7 to 9, and goes back to her evaluation. The more detailed version is '_very_ favorable', and in general it promises to be a low-key affair.

The week passes with only a couple of incidents (yet another outage on the 73rd floor as a result of one of Foster's tests, and a series of modest-sized tsunamis in Malaysia caused by a rogue former-Hydra agent with a 'wave generator'), and then she's sitting in Pepper's office, having apple croissants and good coffee.

Pepper begins as soon as they're both settled. "So. I think you're doing a fantastic job, and I honestly don't know how we'd be getting by without you. I hope that was clear."

"It was, thank you." Maria has a bite of pastry; it's light and flaky and dusted with powdered sugar, and filled with custard and apple slices. "And I'm very happy here, which given my list of concerns might not have been obvious."

Pepper waves a hand. "No, I didn't think those meant you had problems working with us. They're all things that need taking care of. Now, there are three I'm going to need to talk to Tony about."

Maria has a sip of her coffee. She is sure she knows which three it will be, but asks, "Which are those?"

"That would be," Pepper slides her finger over her tablet, "the situation with Thor's hammer, the problem with the 73rd floor, and the changes you wanted to Robotics."

Maria smiles to herself. Right on all three counts. "They're more up his alley," she says, and Pepper nods.

"I'll keep on him and make sure they get addressed." Pepper swipes at her tablet again. "So, aside from those..."

They chat about Maria's other concerns, and the conversation meanders from there to their upcoming security contracts and issues on the horizon, including the SpaceX partnership. The whole thing takes an hour, then they sign off the paperwork and Maria goes back to her office and digs into the new day.

* * *

The next morning Stark waltzes into her office and makes no attempt to hide how he's looking at every screen, white board, and piece of paper on his short trip from the door to her desk. She doesn't acknowledge him until he's waited at least a minute.

"Mr. Stark. To what do I owe the pleasure?" She strikes a note between 'sincere' and 'you're interrupting me so it needs to be good', which makes him smile.

"Pleasant conversation, of course." He pulls out his smartphone. "I was told I need to talk to you about a few things."

Maria surveys Stark. He can be surprisingly hard to read when he wants to be, and this is one of those times. He's effecting aloof, business-as-usual boredom, and yet she knows it's a mask.

"You could just email me."

"I think this kind of thing requires some face time, don't you? I mean it _is_ your performance review."

He's up to something. Maria pulls up her calendar. "Tomorrow at 3?"

"How about noon. We can do it over lunch."

He definitely has something on his mind if he wants to do this over food; it's a classic distraction tactic. "Noon to two?"

"Sure. Order whatever." He turns and leaves, casting his eyes around the room again as he goes. Maria makes a mental note to have some mock reports and fake screenshots for next time, and calls Delilah to her desk.

"I'm going to need noon to two cleared off tomorrow. And I'll be eating take-out. We need enough for three. Have any suggestions for something really spicy?"

Delilah bites her lip and taps at her tablet. "I hear the new Thai place is good, and they'll make it as spicy as you ask."

"Sounds perfect."

* * *

Stark's punctuality varies widely; today, he has opted to show up exactly on time. She'd been banking on that, so he arrives to a spread of take-out containers, plates, silverware, and bowls (for the soup).

"Smells good. Is this from Phuket?"

"No, the new one. Ruby Thai."

"Mmm. Well, we'll see if they measure up."

Maria lets Delilah get herself some, then once Delilah is safely ensconced in her office with the door shut she and Stark dig in. There's chicken panang curry, tom kah goong, chicken satays, muu phad woon sen, and Thai iced tea, plus black rice pudding for dessert if they're so inclined.

A few bites in, Stark says, "Not bad. Just hot enough, without killing the rest of the flavors."

Maria nods in agreement. "I was thinking I might make this my new go-to for Thai."

"I wouldn't go _that_ far," Stark says. He takes out his phone, connects it to one of the monitors without so much as a by-your-leave (she makes a mental note to do another security audit on his access to her equipment), and pulls up her copies of the review forms. "Pepper said you have a few workplace improvement requests that I should discuss with you."

She nods, and he skips to the first page with a flick of his fingers. "First request: any and all testing of Foster's wormhole generating device should be restricted to the 75th floor labs." He sighs and sips from his soup. "That was an accident. They were _both_ accidents. We didn't know the wiring on 73 was like that." She gives him her most deadpan look over her Thai iced tea. He grimaces and continues, "I mean, _I_ knew, I just didn't bother to tell Foster, and then when they moved the apparatus—" He stops, maybe noticing her expression has remained unchanged, and clears his throat. "Right. Okay. Singularity testing on 75 only. I'll get her facility rearranged and upgraded, maybe, expanded, to accommodate the equipment."

Maria smiles. "When's the next test, by the way?"

"Two weeks."

"Are they aiming to keep it open longer?"

"Probably not. She wants to stabilize the energy levels first." Stark moves to the next page. "Next request: Thor's hammer stays in his and Foster's accommodations, approved lab spaces, on his person, or on the roof." He raises his eyebrows at her. "I don't understand why you think Pepper or I can do anything about that."

"I'm pretty sure if you ask him, he'll do it."

"I'm pretty sure if _you_ ask him—"

"I'm not the CEO, and I'm not an Avenger." Stark blinks and sits back in his chair, and she continues, "It's not my job to herd the Avengers, _especially_ not the alien demi-god. That's yours, by virtue of being the leasee of this building, which also has a very large A on the side of it. Nominally, it's also Potts' job, since she's the CEO of the company that's leasing the building to you."

Stark is staring at her. "Did you just say you're not an Avenger?"

Maria hesitates, then covers it with a few bites of curry. This can't be why he wanted to do this in person. Can it? "I'm the Director of Stark Industries' Global Security."

"And, an Avenger."

It _is_. She taps the arm of her chair. "I don't recall that being on my paperwork."

"I'll have it added."

"Ink's long dry on those contracts."

"We'll draw up an addition. I have lawyers, _we_ have lawyers." Stark gives her a long, concerned look. "You really don't think you're an Avenger?"

Maria's not sure how she feels about this, given everything, and so she decides to be honest about it. "The Avengers Initiative was Fury's project, not mine. I was against the idea from the start."

Squinting, Stark says, "And are you still against it?"

She shifts in her seat and considers the empty satay skewers on her plate. She's asked herself this question a lot lately, because as much as she wants to insist she's not an Avenger, the reality is she's helped Rogers and Rhodes coordinate the majority of their missions, expeditions, and battles, and managed most of the briefings. She's also worked with Stark and Romanoff to break into who knows how many Hydra computer systems and decrypted countless files and messages for them. If inclusion in the Avengers was determined by involvement alone, she was a flagship member.

And still. "I don't really know. I think having power concentrated into small pools of individuals who aren't accountable to society is risky. I think there's nothing stopping Thor or Banner from deciding they're going to do whatever they want, and we'd be hard pressed to stop them if that happened."

Stark rearranges himself in his chair. "Concentrated power, like say, the World Security Council?"

"I didn't like them either," she says, and takes a bite of woon sen.

Stark smirks, which she knows is tacit agreement. He has more soup and says, "Banner and Thor won't do that."

"Are you willing to risk seven billion lives on your gut feeling about them?"

"They won't." Stark finishes off his soup. "But that's why you're head of Stark Industries Global Security, and I'm not."

Maria allows herself a small smile. "So. The hammer?"

Stark sniffs. "I'll look into it." He clears his throat and sits back. "Third request: isolation of the AI and Robotics Research Division onto its own cluster, complete with a network air gap." He raises his eyebrows at her. "Did you recently marathon the entire _Terminator_ franchise?"

She didn't, but now she makes a mental note to do so. "I don't have a problem with the Robotics and AI R&amp;D groups. We've made a lot of progress in advancing prosthetics, rescue and exploration equipment, and construction machinery. But your new AI projects are much more advanced than anything else out there, including our own security systems. We need to think about containment."

"Are you including JARVIS in this list of nasty characters?"

"JARVIS isn't an alpha-phase prototype with a buglist longer than _War and Peace_. He's a completed, released, and well-documented AI."

JARVIS says, "Thank you, Director Hill."

"Sure thing, JARVIS."

Stark rolls his eyes and slathers peanut sauce on a satay. "It'll take at least a month to get those labs and their server rooms renovated to allow for that."

"That's fine. I don't expect any of these changes to happen over night." She has some soup. It's the perfect balance of hot and sharp from the combination of lemongrass, chilies, and magrood. "You can have it done at the same time you're doing Foster's lab space."

Once he's finished wolfing down his satay, Stark says, "Naturally." He disconnects from the monitor, seems to make a few notes, and tucks his phone away. "Thanks for lunch. Ruby Thai, you said?"

"You're welcome. And yes."

He looks around the room, eyeing some of her monitors. She hopes he sees the Godzilla screenshots. His eyes narrow a fraction, then he turns to go. "Until next time, Hill."

* * *

Two days later, Marjorie from HR shows up with a thick packet of paperwork labeled TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT (ADDENDUM). Most of it looks identical to the original contract Maria signed in May, so she asks Marjorie what this is all about.

"We need to update your employment terms. It was in your review."

"What was in my review?"

Marjorie skips to the tabbed pages; thankfully they're only having Maria initial and sign the changes, and not the whole thing. There's new sections under Titles and Duties.

Titles (New):  
Member - Avengers

Duties (New):  
As a Member of the Avengers - Avenge stuff

Maria gives Marjorie a dubious look. Marjorie shrugs. "It says that for all of the Avengers who have a Stark Industries contract, which is everyone except Mr. Thor. Mr. Stark insisted. Legal says it's okay."

Maria sighs and takes up her pen, and Marjorie pulls out her notarizing stamp.

"Let's hope we never have to test that," Maria says, and signs and initials next to the various arrow stickers. She realizes that this means Stark will no doubt email her tomorrow and say _she_ can talk to Thor about his hammer and where it's allowed to be, but maybe that's not a bad thing. She could stand to establish a rapport with the intergalactic alien dignitary in their midst.

Marjorie stamps and signs in the box next to Maria's signatures. _Maria Hill, Avenger_, Maria thinks to herself.

She decides to add it to her business cards.


End file.
